I've been painting up a small army of Reaper Savage Worlds / Deadlands minis (which I got from Beautiful Brains Books & Games), but I've also been supplementing them with assorted HorrorClix and even one or two Rail Wars minis. There are a few figures I have which are "borderline" workable for Deadlands, but I found that a nice little detail that helps to push them over the edge is to give the figure a HAT.

(Why, even the Rail Wars "sawbones" was missing a hat! For shame!)

The usual method I apply to add a "top hat" to a figure is just to make a thin disc of putty for the brim and jam that on the figure's head (carefully touching up to make sure the brim is shaped right), let that cure, then add a cylinder of putty for the main body of the hat ... the later add a "thread" of putty to make the hat band.

However, I have a rougher time making decent cowboy hats, and it occurred to me that I've got a lot of perfectly good cowboy hats on the official Reaper minis.

After that cooled, I removed the plastic, then carefully trimmed off excess plastic (which I can then re-melt and re-bond with the rest of my stockpile of Instant Mold) so I'd have a smaller, more manageable mold.

I have a few HorrorClix Freakshow "Firefighter / Big Red" minis (#073, #074, #075) I got as part of a bulk deal, which look like they could work for a Victorian or Wild-West setting.

I've removed them from their Clix bases and put on a mix of War Cast Studios resin bases, and some home-brewed 30mm base experiments. The original figures are holding fire axes, which were easily removed so I could have some characters who might work as regular bystanders/townfolk (or as bar room brawlers). Unfortunately, they have no hats.

So, voila! I just jammed a bit of Apoxie Sculpt into the mini-mold and popped that onto the head of one of the figures. The result will need trimming, since this is just a one-sided mold, so the area under the brim needs cutting and sanding -- and I also need to carve out the imprint under the hat, since it's hard to aim the mold onto the head JUST RIGHT.

This hat came out slightly too far forward on the head ... so in retrospect while it might have been "cute" to just jam the mold onto the figure's head, I'd be better off just using a sculpting tool to hollow out the putty while it's in the mold, and then make adjustments once I pop out the hat casting to fit it on the figure's head.

Although it still needs a little work, I've found that adding a decent hat can work in a pinch as "shorthand" for a figure who looks more in place in the Weird West or in a Victorian setting._________________